We Are Temporary, the wired and weird brainchild of Brooklyn’s Mark Roberts, is as much the result of a musical obsession as a philosophical one. Blending darkwave, EDM, and electronic post-rock, We Are Temporary oscillates between musical violence and frailty, lyrical defensiveness and vitriol, bursts of optimism and crushing nihilism.

Raised in Germany by an American opera singer, Roberts spent his childhood playing hide-and-seek in the halls of Europe’s grandest opera houses, and borrowing Skinny Puppy tapes from his babysitter. His mother’s love of music and strong sense of purpose inspired him to pick up the classical guitar at a young age, and he soon also began to experiment with early digital synths, MS DOS, and hissy multi-track tape recorders. He later studied composition and philosophy at Northwestern University in Chicago, then evolutionary aesthetics at New Zealand’s University of Canterbury.

In New Zealand, Roberts formed The Enright House releasing a debut album in 2007 with A Low Hum. His debut We Are Temporary EP, Afterthoughts, was originally conceived as the soaring, ambient follow-up record that would build on The Enright House’s guitar-centric sound. However, after touring extensively in 2009 and relocating to New York, Roberts soon began tearing his songs apart, replacing his lavish instrumentations with the synthetic severity of the Darkwave and EBM bands he grew up with: Skinny Puppy, Deine Lakaien, Leæther Strip. Songs like “Afterthoughts” and “Swords” became brutal, punching anthems; lyrics became weaponized: “I need to be loved by someone else / More sexual than you / A Kindred heart’s just not good enough” (Swords).

Roberts is currently working on his follow up We Are Temporary record—a debut full-length album, titled Gemini—and is aiming to perform live in spring and summer of 2014.

Download the Afterthoughts EP for free from We Are Temporary's website at www.wearetemporary.com. Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.